About “Helter Skelter”

A “helter skelter” is an amusement park ride with a slide built in a spiral around a high tower (it’s also British slang, meaning “in disorderly haste or confusion”)

Paul McCartney – who penned the song – used the song as a response to critics who accused him of writing too many ballads. The proto-heavy metal musical backing emerged as Paul saw Pete Townshend saying The Who’s “I Can See for Miles” was “the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock and roll record you’ve ever heard", so he decided to up the ante, while also “using the symbol of a helter skelter as a ride from the top to the bottom; the rise and fall of the Roman Empire – and this was the fall, the demise.”

We used to have a laugh about this, that or the other, in a light-hearted way, and some intellectual would read us, some symbolic youth generation wants to see something in it. We also took seriously some parts of the role, but I don’t know what Helter Skelter has to do with knifing someone. I’ve never listened to it properly, it was just a noise.
-John Lennon to Rolling Stone, 1970

What have the artists said about the song?

That came about just ’cause I’d read a review of a record which said, ‘and this group really got us wild, there’s echo on everything, they’re screaming their heads off.’ And I just remember thinking, ‘Oh, it’d be great to do one. Pity they’ve done it. Must be great – really screaming record.’

And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasn’t rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, ‘Oh well, we’ll do one like that, then.’ And I had this song called ‘Helter Skelter,’ which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, ‘cuz I like noise.”